Article ignored graduate students who back proposed housing plan

The Tech's news article "Grad students oppose proposed housing
policy" [March 16] was an irresponsible piece of journalism because it
portrays the Graduate Student Council's Housing and Community Affairs
Committee as uniformly opposed to the Housing Office proposal for graduate
student housing and fails to mention graduate support for the proposed
plan.

We sat with The Tech's reporter for nearly two hours at the HCA
committee meeting on March 5. Either he slept through most of that meeting
or he chose to ignore a large part of the discussion which transpired. At
least five individuals (four of whom have been members of HCA for at least
one year) expressed support for the Housing Office's proposed policy.

If The Tech had bothered to investigate the recent history of HCA
meetings, it would have realized that many of those showing up for such
meetings are not regular attendees of HCA meetings. Rather they are current
on-campus residents who have been showing up in droves ever since the
concept of changing the status quo with regards to graduate student housing
was suggested. In fact, this applies to many of the 15 or so individuals
who voiced opposition to the proposal at the March 5 meeting. It is
unrealistic to expect individuals who live off-campus (the majority of
graduate students) to attend meetings to debate issues which will have
absolutely no effect on them. That leaves a few of us who are dedicated to
the plight of homeless first-year graduate students to speak up at these
meetings as spokespersons for the nameless 1300 incoming graduate students
who are subjected to the "housing meet grinder" each fall.

More than 80 percent of the nearly 1500 graduate students who responded
to a 1989 HCA survey said first-year graduate students should have priority
for on-campus housing. Of all the plans which have been seriously discussed
at HCA meetings (including the GSC proposal), the Housing Office's proposed
plan is superior and most closely in accord with students' expressed views.
It will guarantee housing to the most first-year graduate students with the
shortest delay in reaching the long term goal of offering one year of
on-campus housing to all first-year graduate students who request housing.
This point of view was espoused by several of us at the March 5 HCA
meeting. It was negligent of The Tech to ignore it.